Morocco

Country ratings

Standing beside the extraordinary Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca – the world’s second-largest religious building, built jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean between 1986 and 1993 – it is easy to conceive of Morocco as a country on the edge. On the edge of Africa, kissing Europe’s southern lip; on the edge of the Arab world, valued by successive White House administrations for its readiness to accept Israel’s existence.

But it is on the edge in a much more meaningful sense, with popular resentment building, the economy in freefall and a royal regime running so scared of Islamism that it is falling back on the bad old habits of repression.

When Muhammad VI succeeded his father Hassan II in 1999, it was widely hailed as the dawn of a new era in which the young king would take the country boldly forth into a new era of democracy and respect for human rights. And there have been a few promising developments. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have welcomed a greater openness on human rights issues, pointing particularly to the Equity and Reconciliation Committee set up at the beginning of 2004 to investigate the 6,000-odd cases of ‘disappearance’ or arbitrary imprisonment and torture during Hassan II’s reign – the first such initiative in the Muslim world.

But democracy remains a sham, despite the existence of a directly elected house of deputies. In practice the King retains absolute power, the ruling élite is corrupt and elections are seen as irrelevant, not least by the urban poor. On the eve of parliamentary elections in 2002, a newspaper poll showed that 9 out of 10 respondents could not identify, by name or ideological orientation, any of the political parties standing.

Islamism is the spectre at this feast. Morocco’s rulers are justifiably terrified at the prospect of the country descending into a civil war between Islamists and secular forces like that in neighbouring Algeria. The most popular Islamist party – al-Adl wal-Ihsan (Justice and Charity) – is banned and its leader, Abdessalam Yassine, who advocates nonviolent change, has been under house arrest. Other Islamists have turned to terror – bomb attacks in Casablanca in May 2002 left 45 dead. In the wake of this, sweeping counter-terror legislation was passed at a stroke and a huge crackdown resulted in the arrest of more than 2,000 suspected militants, many of whom were held in prolonged incommunicado detention.

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Faced with the growing appeal of Islamism to the urban poor, the King has clutched at the same straw as his father – the illusion of national unity supplied by the Western Sahara issue. Morocco invaded the former Spanish colony in 1975 and has since built a fortified wall the length of the occupied territory, in defiance of repeated UN attempts to persuade Rabat to allow a referendum on self-determination – Saharawis are the last colonized people in Africa not to have been given their chance of independence.

Morocco’s intransigence on this issue is indefensible, though the West has turned a blind eye because of its status as a reliable ally in the Arab world – and the European Union has just concluded a deal with Rabat to fish in Western Saharan waters, in contravention of international law.

Mass Saharawi demonstrations in the occupied territory and in southern Morocco since May have been met with brutal repression. Over 100 people were detained, many of whom were tortured, and 37 of those still imprisoned launched a hunger strike on 3 August. By the time it was suspended on 29 September, 14 of these had lost consciousness and been hospitalized.

Human-rights groups in Morocco and Western Sahara are now increasingly making common cause. The King cannot any longer play at democracy and social justice just to improve his image: the storm clouds are gathering fast.¦

Chris Brazier

Fact file

Leader

King Muhammad VI (Sayyidi ibn al-Hasan)

Economy

GNI per capita $1,320 (Algeria $1,890, France $24,770)

Monetary unit

Dirham

Main exports

Tea, coffee, hides, tin ore. The recent fishing deal will benefit the EU far more than Morocco and will do little to bolster up an economy reeling from the twin shocks of oil prices (unlike many other Arab states, the country has no oil) and textile market collapse. Cheap Chinese textiles are now flooding into Europe and Morocco’s exports have collapsed, with the expected loss of 155,000 out of 250,000 jobs in 2005 alone.

Overgrazing and overfarming in marginal areas has caused soil erosion. Water supplies can be contaminated with sewage.

Culture

Arab 70%, Berber 30%. Arabic is the official language and Berber groups say their culture is under threat from a Government that refuses to let them register newborns with their traditional names and Arabizes all geographic locations. Nevertheless, from 2003, 317 schools started teaching the Berber language.

Religion

Sunni Muslim 98.7%, Christian 1.1%, Jewish 0.2%.

Country ratings in detail

Income distribution

The élite in the cities are a world away not only from the traditional villages but also from the potentially explosive urban poor. 1994

Literacy

Adult literacy is just 49%, with a huge gap between male (62%) and female (36%). 1994

Life expectancy

69 years (Algeria 70, France 79). 1994

Freedom

The King may wear a more velvet glove than his father but there is still an iron fist beneath. Saharawis are not the only victims: 14 heavy metal fans from Casablanca were recently imprisoned for 'Satanism' and 'corrupting public morals'. 1994

Position of women

Moroccan women are less constrained by Islamic practice than in many other Arab countries - though Islamism's growing profile is a source of fear for independent women. Women's activism recently provoked a revision of Islamic law related to family affairs. 1994

Sexual minorities

Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to three years' imprisonment but the law is rarely used.

New Internationalist assessment

The Government is a coalition between the Socialist Union and the Istiqlal or Independence Party, with the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party in opposition. But the King appoints the Prime Minister (currently Driss Jettou) and the Cabinet, and generally sets the social agenda. He wants to persuade the West that he is a modernizing democrat while still holding on to autocratic power. Meanwhile he wants to hold the line against Islamism while stressing his legitimacy as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The tightrope is swaying in the breeze.

This article is from
the November 2005 issue
of New Internationalist.
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Once a writer for the rock music weekly Melody Maker (1977-80), Chris Brazier has been a co-editor of New Internationalist magazine since 1984. He has covered myriad subjects from masculinity to maternal mortality, Panafricanism to the paranormal,...